Stopping the Traffic Jam: Getting More People To Your Website

It happened. You bought a domain, built a website, and you are just waiting for your millions to roll in. Right? The first week you had thousands of hits on your website, the second week hundreds, the third week… nothing? What happened? Why haven’t you made any money yet? You quickly jump on google only to find that you can’t find your website with any of the key words you set up! What’s happening?!

Take a deep breathe.

There might be some things you are forgetting or simply didn’t know.

You might be too new.

Give it some time. Your site has to be indexed, keywords have to be lined up, and Google has some work to do. And despite popular belief, Google isn’t an all-knowing genie that can magically find your site. So give it some time, but don’t sit there idly; there are some other things to check!

Site loading…

Let’s face it. People are impatient. If the site is taking too long to load, it means you probably have a high bounce rate.

What’s a bounce rate, you ask? This is how Google defines it: “A bounce is a single-page session on your site. In Analytics, a bounce is calculated specifically as a session that triggers only a single request to the Analytics server, such as when a user opens a single page on your site and then exits without triggering any other requests to the Analytics server during that session. Bounce rate is single-page sessions divided by all sessions, or the percentage of all sessions on your site in which users viewed only a single page and triggered only a single request to the Analytics server.”

Simply put. It means people come to your site and then leave without doing anything else.

No Mobile Site? Ain’t nobody got time to pinch and zoom.

There isn’t much we don’t do from our phones these days. According to techcrunch.com we now spend 5 hours per day on mobile devices. That’s about 21% of our day.

91% of mobile users say that access to content is very important. Remember that bounce rate we talked about earlier? Yeah. This could be a major reason.

Oh and to make it more important… google ranks mobile-friendly sites higher.

If you aren’t blogging, it’s time to start.

This is really two-fold. One: If you aren’t doing it, you should. It’s simple, inexpensive, and helps you build your brand. Two: You may be doing it wrong. It’s too long to get into the nitty gritty details here, but here are few quick pointers:

Include 1-2 focus keywords and make sure you use them in the title and a couple of times in the post.

Optimize the meta description. It’s the text that displays below the link or when you share your post on social media.

Include images that include keywords in the alt tag.

Link to other blog posts and pages on your site.

Sharing is caring!

I know. I know. Facebook is an evil conglomerate that is out to get the small businessman. NOT TRUE. More often than not, people just expect everyone else to do the bulk of the work. You have to share your content and get others to share it too. Insert Family Disclaimer. You probably will hear a lot of people tell you to have your family share your content (I’ve even done it before), but honestly it doesn’t do much good. Because generally speaking your friends will follow your page or your posts for a period of time, but ultimately they won’t read it, buy it, or support it long term. You have to start to develop REAL followers.

Okay. Stepping off of my soapbox.

Creating good content takes time and effort. If you create good content it will get shared. But you can’t sit by and idly wait for it to happen.

Bad UI/UX (aka your site is ugly and hard to use).

User experience and design matter. I understand that people want to save money and do the work themselves, but sometimes it is better to hire a professional. This is one of those times. And while we are at it, TRUST YOUR DESIGNER! Don’t argue when they want to place content in a certain order or format. They aren’t doing it to be mean, they truly want to see you succeed (at least if they are good)!

Have a couple of people test out your site and give you some honest feedback. Don’t be hurt by it and get your site squared away. Or better yet… hire us.

No, keywords aren’t dead.

Keywords are much more that the meta tags in your website code. They exist throughout your site. Google actually cares if you put keywords in your meta tag, but don’t put them in your website. Use your keywords when you blog, on your pages, etc.

Keywords can be placed all across your site, but try placing them in H1 page headers, H2, H3, H4 sub-headers, alt tags on images, inside the title tag, etc. You don’t need to saturate your pages and posts with keywords, but they definitely should be there to keep your site indexed.

Your site is buggy and full of errors.

Does your site have errors or bad links? It could be causing a problem for Google to find your site. Get the errors fixed as soon as you can. Site errors means you aren’t getting found. If you can’t them fixed, it’s time to hire someone to fix them for you.

I’m doing everything right and it still isn’t working!

It’s okay, you aren’t alone. Don’t blame yourself. Keep working, keep tweaking, keep going. Worst case scenario it’s time to call in the experts. AKA me. I will see what we can do to help get you the most views! Contact us today.

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Ardent Communications is based in Sierra Vista, Arizona and provides complete solutions for Web Design, Graphic Design, Social Media, Marketing, and Consulting Services for your business. Since 2007, we have helped hundreds of businesses and organizations grow their online and offline presences, attracting more customers, and put more money in their pockets.

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